My garage is an absolute mess. I keep building and setting up work benches and they keep getting filled up. I had this space underneath the window with all the paint cans just piled up and decided to build another work space with shelves here. These really are the easiest shelves to build. These I built all by myself and total time from start to finish was under 2 hours. Now, they still need a trim and maybe one day I willl get back to them and place the trim but for now they are fully functional and useful. This bench is where I do the final staining and painting on projects to leave the actual workbench free from this clutter.

Tools:

RouterMiter saw or circular saw to cut the 2 x 4 to height (or have the warehouse store do it for you) skill sawPower Drill and bitsLevelmeasuring tapemarker or pencilclamps

The shelves that I made were 8' x 2' which is one sheet of plywood cut down.The legs are cut to 37 inches so that the overall height is roughly 38" tall. The reason for the height, I use quite a few of the plastic storage bins and they are roughly 17" in height on average. This way I could have two rows of them or 3 if I used the top of the shelves as storage.

How to start:

I started by lining up the 3 legs and clamping them together and then clamping it all to my work bench. A mark was placed at 18" and 19". This is where the "trench" or "dado" will go to that you can inset the shelf. I trenched it out to 1/2 inch

Here is the dado with a little oops at the beginning. I had set the depth too much. This is a 1/2 dado

Next, I cut the sections out of the plywood so that it would set flush. Because 2 x 4's are not actually 2 x 4, you need to subtract the 1/2 for the depth and cut it to that. So my notch cut in the plywood was about 1" in depth. Cut out all three.

I make a little triangle notch so that it is easier to "turn the corner".

Next. I attached my 2- 1 x 2 to the wall using 3 inch set screws set at all the studs. The bottom rail was set at 18 inches (the top of it) and the second is at 37".

Next, I set the legs into the bottom shelf and screwed them on using 2" wood screws. I then flipped it so that the shelf rested on the bottom rail and set that with 1 1/2"I wood screws. I then placed the top on and afixed that with 1 1/2" wood screws.

This is an incredible easy and fairly inexpensive project to do. You can finish this up with a varnish or waterproof if you like and also add trim. I will probably just leave them as they are.

I hope that description was not too confusing! If you have any questions, please email me or leave a comment. I also have a YouTube channel where I feature many of my recipes and Challenges, Speed Draws and soon some of my DIY's. If you would like to check it out, click on this link: Bristlee One

Thank you for stopping by and remember, enjoy life.It's the one you have,Tammie